How does greenpeace make money

The country experimented with a type of genetically modified corn that would be used for animal feed. In an interview in , Moore said that his former comrades were condemning 2 million children to death. Greenpeace has also vocally opposed fish farming. In , the Arctic Sunrise joined a flotilla of fishing and sport boats that sailed toward fish farms off the coast of British Columbia. While the Greenpeace fleet did not attempt to interfere with operations, it hoisted an anti-fish farming banner.

Greenpeace has been an opponent of modern forestry practices. It has led protests of logging operations from Canada to Poland. It has also targeted corporations that manufacture wood products. Greenpeace even protested fast food giant KFC over rainforest deforestation.

It has sought to tie itself to the larger progressive movement. The organization endorses the policies of the broader progressive left, even outside the environmental agenda. Greenpeace is also a strong opponent of voter ID laws and endorsed a renewal of the Voting Rights Act. It has also endorsed gun control laws.

Greenpeace relies on so-called direct action tactics. Greenpeace activists have trespassed on private property on many occasions. The attention is then used to raise money from individuals all over the world.

In , then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo threatened to investigate the energy company Chevron while the company was a defendant in a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit in Ecuador.

The lawsuit charged Chevron with environmental damages to the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador, even though the company had not actually drilled for oil there. According to court-ordered released emails for the trial, Cuomo was pushed to threaten legal action against Chevron by his former aide, Karen Hinton, and her husband, Howard Glaser, another former staffer for Cuomo.

Donziger has since been disbarred from practicing law in New York due to his corrupt conduct during the trial. Instead, it relies on donations from foundations and individuals. The organization does not have a political action committee PAC. Charity Navigator awards Greenpeace just 2 out of 4 stars. For the associated c 3 , see Greenpeace Fund nonprofit Greenpeace is one of the most internationally recognized environmentalist organizations.

No Credit: The charity did not have its audited financials prepared by an independent accountant. More Making loans to related parties such as key officers, staff, or Board members, is not standard practice in the sector as it may divert the charity's funds away from its charitable mission and can lead to real and perceived conflict-of-interest problems.

This practice is discouraged by sector trade groups which point to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act when they call for charities to refrain from making loans to directors and executives.

And the IRS is concerned enough with the practice that it requires charities to disclose on their Form any loans to or from current and former officers, directors, trustees, key employees, and other "disqualified persons. Furthermore, it is problematic because it is an indicator that the organization is not financially secure.

Less Documents Board Meeting Minutes More An official record of the events that take place during a board meeting ensures that a contemporaneous document exists for future reference. Charities are not required to make their Board meeting minutes available to the public.

As such, we are not able to review and critique their minutes. For this performance metric, we are checking to see if the charity reports on its Form that it does keep those minutes.

In the future, we will also track and rate whether or not a charity keeps minutes for its committee meetings. Less Distributes to Board Before Filing More Providing copies of the Form to the governing body in advance of filing is considered a best practice, as it allows for thorough review by the individuals charged with overseeing the organization. The Form asks the charity to disclose whether or not it has followed this best practice. If the charity has not distributed its Form to the board before filing, then we deduct 4 points from its Accountability and Transparency score.

Less Compensates Board More The IRS requires that any compensation paid to members of the charity's governing body be listed on the Form Furthermore, all members of the governing body need to be listed whether or not they are compensated. It is not unusual for some members of the board to have compensation listed. The executive director of the organization frequently has a seat on the board, for instance, and is compensated for being a full time staff member.

However, it is rare for a charity to compensate individuals only for serving on its Board of Directors. Although this sort of board compensation is not illegal, it is not considered a best practice. Policies Charity Navigator looks to confirm on the Form , or for some metrics on the charity's website, that the organization has these policies in place. More Such a policy protects the organization, and by extension those it serves, when it is considering entering into a transaction that may benefit the private interest of an officer or director of the organization.

Charities are not required to share their conflict of interest policies with the public. Although we can not evaluate the substance of its policy, we can tell you if the charity has one in place based on the information it reports on its Form If the charity does not have a Conflict of Interest policy, then we deduct 4 points from its Accountability and Transparency score.

Less Whistleblower More This policy outlines procedures for handling employee complaints, as well as a confidential way for employees to report any financial mismanagement. Here we are reporting on the existence of a policy as reported by the charity on its Form Less Records Retention and Destruction More Such a policy establishes guidelines for handling, backing up, archiving and destruction of documents. These guidelines foster good record keeping procedures that promotes data integrity.

If the charity does not have a Records Retention and Destruction Policy, then we deduct 4 points from its Accountability and Transparency score. More This process indicates that the organization has a documented policy that it follows year after year. The policy should indicate that an objective and independent review process of the CEO's compensation has been conducted which includes benchmarking against comparable organizations.

We check to be sure that the charity has reported on its Form its process for determining its CEO pay. Less Donor Privacy More Donors have expressed extreme concern about the use of their personal information by charities and the desire to have this information kept confidential.

Privacy policies are assigned to one of the following categories: Yes: This charity has a written donor privacy policy published on its website, which states unambiguously that 1 it will not share or sell a donor's personal information with anyone else, nor send donor mailings on behalf of other organizations or 2 it will only share or sell personal information once the donor has given the charity specific permission to do so.

Opt-out: The charity has a written privacy policy published on its website which enables donors to tell the charity to remove their names and contact information from lists the charity shares or sells. How a donor can have themselves removed from a list differs from one charity to the next, but any and all opt-out policies require donors to take specific action to protect their privacy. No: This charity either does not have a written donor privacy policy in place to protect their contributors' personal information, or the existing policy does not meet our criteria.

Less Partial. Transparency Charity Navigator looks to confirm on the Form , or for some metrics on the charity's website, that the organization makes this information easily accessible. Our analysts check to be sure that the charities complied with the Form instructions and included this information in their filing. Less Board of Directors Listed on Website More Our analysts check to see if the charity lists Board members on its website.

Publishing this information enables donors and other stakeholders to ascertain the make up of the charity's governing body. This enables stakeholders to report concerns to the Board. Charity Navigator does not cross-check the Board members listed on the website with that reported on the Form , because the latter often isn't available until more than a year after the charity's fiscal year ends.

In that time, the charity's Board members may have changed, and the charity typically reflects those more recent changes on the website. But Greenpeace has consistently sought to end GMO use in developing countries. For example, in famine-stricken Zambia it contends that the U. Golden Rice proves them wrong, so they need to discredit it any way they can.

Greenpeace also maintains a dangerous opposition to DDT, which is one of the most important tools for fighting the deadly spread of malaria in the developing world.

Malaria is estimated to kill 1. As it turns out, however, nowhere in her book did Carson call for the unilateral suspension of chemical insecticides; she simply questioned their arbitrary and unrestricted use.

As Greenpeace defector Dr. Chlorine in drinking water is widely considered to be one of the great public health achievements of the 20 th century, killing the microorganisms within it, and making it drinkable. It is credited with virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. Despite these facts, and broad support of water chlorination from the scientific community, Greenpeace maintains a fundamentalist opposition to its use. Opposition to chlorine was the final straw for Greenpeace founding member Dr.

Patrick Moore, who left the organization in when it decided to support a universal ban on chlorine in drinking water. Several years ago, Greenpeace began going after electronics, specifically the chemicals used in their formation.

Greenpeace condemned the entire industry, saying that no company was doing enough to keep toxic chemicals out of consumer electronics. It viscerally went after Apple for using a small amount of toxic flame retardant, tetrabromobisphenol A, a chemical widely credited with preventing hundreds of deaths each year from electric fires and that has never been shown to be harmful to humans.

Monitoring studies have confirmed that TVs and computers are not significant emission sources. Another chemical that has recently found its way into the Greenpeace crosshairs is bisphenol A, otherwise known as BPA. BPA is a building block of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins used in nearly every industry, including the construction of plastic water bottles and food storage containers.

According to the FDA:. But along with targeting aquaculture, Greenpeace wants to make it all but impossible to harvest wild populations of any fish species regardless of sustainability. Because retailers have no interest in seeing fish that make them a profit suddenly become unavailable, many grocery chains have recently changed their stance on carrying unsustainably sourced seafood. Of course, Greenpeace is more than willing to take credit for this development, despite the fact that several supermarkets have specifically noted that these decisions were made as a result of advice given not by Greenpeace, but by the New England Aquarium and other, less fanatical organizations.

Indeed, the news regarding sustainable fishing practices is much less dire than Greenpeace would have you believe. For the most up-to-date statistics on the real status of which species of fish are subject to overfishing, click here. Not content to limit their propaganda to the fishing business as a whole, Greenpeace has recently singled out the tuna industry for an even more targeted and intensive attack.

In keeping with its usual modus operandi, Greenpeace launched a national campaign that vilifies tuna companies through grossly hyperbolic videos, accompanied by urgent fundraising letters. Ignoring the fact that canned tuna is one of the best and least expensive sources of such essential nutrients as protein, vitamin D, and omega-3 fatty acids, Greenpeace appears determined to coerce retailers into clearing their shelves of this nutritious food.

Greenpeace marginalizes itself in the conversation about tuna sustainability by choosing to be a side show. While Greenpeace strives to shock and awe the public into donating to their misguided crusade, other high-powered conservation groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund WWF , have decided to abandon stunts in favor of working hand-in-hand with the tuna companies through the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation ISSF.

Founded in by tuna industry leaders, marine scientists, and the WWF , the ISSSF brings together companies, governments, scientists and conservation activists to identify best practices and ecologically sustainable solutions to ensure the long term health of all tuna stocks, while protecting oceans and minimizing the impact of fishing on other marine animals.

But the truth is that if tuna disappear from the oceans, the tuna industry would cease to exist. Thankfully, like many of the other fish species Greenpeace has red-listed, evidence shows that the species used in canned tuna are nearly as plentiful as they were 60 years ago. The U. And while Greenpeace continues to raise money by promoting an apocalyptic vision of a world with oceans devoid of all living things, Hilborn says that this message of fear is far from the truth.

The oceans are not picked clean at all. There are lots of fish in the ocean, but not as many as there would be if we did not rely on the oceans for food. If you want to feed the world from capture fisheries you have to accept that the oceans will be different. In fact, it looks much better. No matter how you measure environmental impact: carbon footprints, amount of water used, you can catch fish in the ocean without fresh water! In order to produce the crops to feed chicken, pigs or cows you rip out native ecosystems and replace them with exotic species.

Fishing maintains ecosystems that are largely natural — different but much less different than agricultural systems. If Greenpeace succeeds in getting affordable, nutritious tuna removed from all supermarket shelves, consumers will be forced to turn to other inexpensive sources of protein and fat, namely beef, chicken, and pork.

Surely Greenpeace knows the environmental costs involved in raising more livestock — lost habitat, increased water consumption, and increased use of pesticides, fertilizer, and antibiotics — and yet they seem to prefer this option to a future of sustainable fishing.

When your local news carries footage of protesters railing against genetically improved foods, look hard for the slogan-shouting troublemakers wearing monarch butterfly costumes. Michael Mbwille of the non-profit Food Security Network said it best. In Britain, France, and elsewhere, Greenpeace vandals have destroyed bio-engineered crops, wiping out millions of dollars in research to develop food plants that require fewer pesticides, are more nutritious, reduce dangerous mold toxins, withstand floods and droughts, and increase crop yields.

The people who would benefit most from this research are the poorest, most malnourished on Earth. They could improve their lives, simply by planting different, better corn, cotton, or soybean seeds. But because it contains very few vitamins or minerals, rice alone cannot provide sufficient nutritional benefits to prevent the devastating effects of malnutrition, specifically vitamin A deficiency.

The World Health Organization estimates that, around the world, million children under the age of five may have a vitamin A deficiency. Of those, some , to , suffer blindness, and an equal number go on to meet an untimely end in miserable conditions in urban slums.

By recent estimates , providing children and families easy access to vitamin A could save , lives a year in Africa, Asia, and other developing countries. Golden Rice, a genetically engineered strain of rice that produces beta-carotene, which the human body processes into Vitamin A, was developed by German academics Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer with strictly humanitarian purposes in mind.

This new, nutritionally fortified grain was created in could have been on market as early as or had Greenpeace not decided to intervene. Surely the organization was aware of the WHO statistics for vitamin A deficiency, yet they still chose to oppose Golden Rice. To Greenpeace, the unknown risks associated with planting this GE crop were far more serious than the known consequences — the continued death and suffering of children around the world.

After mounting two largely successful campaigns against nuclear proliferation and whaling, Greenpeace turned its attention to what it saw as the next most clear and present danger: the chemical element chlorine.

Considering all chlorine gives us in terms of public heath and medicine using chlorine to purify drinking water was one of the single biggest advances in the history of public health , this sort of hard-line stance must be considered both anti-science and anti-human. Widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement, Silent Spring documented detrimental effects of pesticides, namely d ichloro d iphenyl t richloroethane DDT on the environment.

As it turns out, however, nowhere in her book did Carson call for the unilateral suspension of chemical insecticides; she simply questioned their arbitrary and unrestricted use. DDT was, and remains to this day, one of the most important tools for fighting the deadly spread of malaria in the developing world. Surely in these situations, the minor risks associated with the chemical are vastly outweighed by the life-saving benefits.

Not until — under immense humanitarian pressure — did Greenpeace finally relent and decide to begrudgingly sanction the use of DDT as an insecticide. While Nokia and Dell received some of the better scores, Greenpeace condemned the entire industry, saying that no company was doing enough to keep toxic chemicals out of consumer electronics. Apple, generally considered one of the leaders in design and innovation, raked near the bottom, coming in 11th place out of Apple has recently launched its new range of MacBooks, but what you also get with a new MacBook is the highest level of another type of toxic flame retardant, tetrabromobisphenol A.

What they fail to mention in the report is that along with preventing hundreds of deaths each year by preventing electronics from bursting into flames tetrabromobisphenol A TBBPA has never been shown to be harmful to humans.

Another chemical that has recently found its way into the Greenpeace crosshairs is bisphenol A, otherwise known as BPA. BPA is a building block of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins used in nearly every industry, including in the construction of plastic water bottles and food storage containers.

According to the FDA :. Consumers should know that, based on all available evidence, the present consensus among regulatory agencies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan is that current levels of exposure to BPA through food packaging do not pose an immediate health risk to the general population, including infants and babies.

This is hardly surprising news, especially considering that according to a Harris poll of full members of the Society of Toxicology, 96 percent of toxicologists believe that Greenpeace overstates chemical health risks.

Something to consider next time you hear the Greenpeace Chemical Alarm Bells ringing off the hook. The campaign specifically targets single-use plastics — like the gloves, hand sanitizer containers, and sealed packaging that kept people safe during the COVID pandemic. In its how-to-lobby guide , Greenpeace advised that people use their plastic phones to set up a meeting with their representatives, use their plastic printer to print off their talking points, use their plastic computer to email any follow-up documents, and to use their plastic pens to write thank you notes to politicians who cave to their demands for a plastic-free future.

The group claimed that the only way to reduce plastic from the ocean is to reduce or reuse plastics. Many types of plastic are completely recyclable and have been used to create everything from Patagonia sweaters to Ikea kitchen sets. Recycling prevents waste from turning up in the environment and halts the need for new plastic to be created. But somehow, Greenpeace thinks they are helping reduce plastic waste by calling recycling a lie.

When Greenpeace was founded in , the possibility of total nuclear annihilation seemed both real and imminent for citizens across the globe, and the organization spent its fledgling years as a vocal opponent of all things nuclear. While that particular mission failed, the Greenpeace founders felt their mission to Amchitka, and the attention it brought to the debate about nuclear testing, played a critical role in convincing President Nixon to cancel the remaining Hydrogen bomb tests.

Eventually, Greenpeace was successful in getting their anti-nuclear weapons message heard — loud and clear — across the globe. Despite the fact that the early s marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War, and with it the slow dissipation of the anxiety surrounding the likelihood of full-blown nuclear holocaust, Greenpeace clung to their convictions regarding the evils of everything nuclear.

To this day, Greenpeace maintains that nuclear power is neither safe nor clean. And, more than 50 years after splitting the first atom, science has yet to devise a method for adequately handling long lived radioactive wastes. The worst nuclear disaster in history occurred in when the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine experienced a full core meltdown. To date, Chernobyl is the only accident in the history of commercial nuclear power where radiation-related fatalities occurred.

Try this statistic on for size: According to the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum , there were 35 fatalities associated with wind turbines in the United States from through Nuclear energy, by contrast, did not kill a single American in that time.

Indeed, the nuclear industry in the U. In , workers in the U. In comparison, the accident rate for all manufacturing industries combined, 3. And as for the storage issue, while the technology to safely store spent nuclear waste and even to recycle it has existed for quite some time, Greenpeace and the culture of fear its policies continually promote continue to stand in the way of viable long term solutions the storage and disposal of nuclear waste.

The saga of the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada is a perfect case in point. For years nuclear plants have been leaking radioactive waste from underground pipes and radioactive waste pools into the ground water at sites across the nation. This is another case of Cold War history being extrapolated to stand-in for the reality of present technology. Modern storage solutions for used nuclear fuel are both safe and secure. Used nuclear fuel takes the form of solid pellets that are not corrosive and can be safely contained in the steel and concrete casks that have been specifically designed to last for hundreds of years or even longer.

What is more, all of this used fuel has the capacity to be recycled :. A secondary reason is to reduce the volume of material to be disposed of as high-level waste to about one fifth. In addition, the level of radioactivity in the waste from reprocessing is much smaller and after about years falls much more rapidly than in used fuel itself.

Many countries, including France, Japan, the U. Greenpeace holds to the linear no-threshold hypothesis LNT theory of radioactivity. In short, the LNT hypothesis says that there is no safe level of radiation.